The “Mandate of Heaven’s” Gobal Revelation – Part 2/2

May 15, 2011

Global history shows that not all previous civilizations collapsed at the same time.

After the Western Roman Empire (500 AD) and the Han Dynasty (219 AD) were gone, the Byzantine Empire thrived in the Middle East for almost a thousand years (500 – 1453 AD), while the Tang Dynasty survived until 906 AD and the Yuan Dynasty (the Mongols) to 1368 AD to be replaced by the Ming then Qing Dynasties.

The British Empire survived until 1947 then vanished as an empire as the United States became a global super power after World War II.

However, many people are not aware of The Mandate of Heaven’s cycle, which leads to behavior that repeats the same mistakes that caused the fall of other civilizations.

American style democracy, capitalism, socialism, jet planes, the combustion engine, telephones, electricity, the Internet, and the iPad are not going to save civilization, as we know it today.

The reason for this is that human nature is what causes the downfall of civilizations.

History shows that during the good times at the height of a civilization such as Rome or the Han Dynasty, most people take the quality of life for granted as if it will never end.  Once that happens, the end begins.


The Mandate of Heaven explained on a global scale by Warren Edward Pollock

In the video, Warren Pollack explains how the Communist Party returned China to stability after chaos and anarchy swept China after the fall of the Qing Dynasty. If the Party continues to maintain domestic stability and keep people working, China may survive as the civilization it is becoming for a few centuries before the next collapse.

Since Mao died in 1976, the internal goal of the People’s Republic of China has been domestic stability. With domestic stability, we see China returning to that period in the dynastic cycle where harmony and prosperity rules leading to a period of stability.

To understand what happened in China, I suggest reading The Roots of Madness.

Edward Pollock says, “If China stood as the world’s top country, it would not act like the United States, which has been irresponsible, lazy and greedy and engaged in robbery and cheating. They (US)  have brought economic recession to the whole world.”

If we look to the dynastic cycle as a guide, it would seem that the United States has entered the cycle’s stage of decay moving toward a collapse.

However, with the weapons of mass destruction that America has in its arsenal (more than any other nation even the USSR), could the US, like a drowning man, pull the rest of global civilization down with it?

Return to The Mandate of Heaven’s Global Revelation – Part 1

______________

Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of the concubine saga, My Splendid Concubine & Our Hart. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too.

To subscribe to iLook China, look for the “Subscribe” button at the top of the screen in the menu bar, click on it then follow directions.


The “Mandate of Heaven’s” Global Revelation – Part 1/2

May 14, 2011

On April 15, 2010 (more than a year ago), I posted The Mandate of Heaven, which has become the most popular post on this Blog. To date, there have been about 2,000 views and they keep coming daily. Only the Home Page has more. Third place has less than half.

On April 13, 2011, Part 2 of Predicting the Fall of a Civilization posted, where I quoted three historical experts.

Edward Gibbons in The Decline of the Roman Empire; Arnold J. Toynbee‘s A study of History, and Jeffrey A. McNeely. All three pointed out elements that were signs of the pending collapse of a civilization.

However, these Western historians and authors are novices compared to ancient Chinese scholars and historians.


The Dynastic Cycle or the Mandate of Heaven as explained by a sixth grade American teacher.

After more than a dozen dynastic collapses, the Chinese learned that underlying the rise and fall of a civilization [The Mandate of Heaven (天命)], is the belief that when ruling families or political parties do nothing for the people but everything for themselves that civilization is doomed to fail.

The Chinese learned that there are duties governments are required to carry out to protect the people from widespread catastrophe, chaos and anarchy.  When a government fails to do this, we may predict that the end of a civilization such as America or Europe is at hand, which will not happen overnight but may take decades or a century.

What I did not realize until this morning was that the Chinese discovered the life cycle of civilizations millennia ago and called it The Mandate of Heaven, The Mandate of God or the Dynastic Cycle.

It doesn’t matter which form of government a civilization has.  They all follow this same pattern. Republics and democracies have existed before the United States, and they all perished along with civilizations ruled by kings, emperors and dictators.

To be continued on May 15, 2011 in The Mandate of Heaven’s Global Revelation – Part 2

______________

Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of the concubine saga, My Splendid Concubine & Our Hart. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too.

To subscribe to iLook China, look for the “Subscribe” button at the top of the screen in the menu bar, click on it then follow directions.